Also, Jesus speaks of strength of faith, saying how “If a person is…holy angels.” In saying this, Jesus means that you should be strong in your being persecuted and not give up your faith to make your life easier, because God would be ashamed of you.
So in these verses, Jesus says you must make sacrifices to follow him and you must only ever have the strongest faith to be received lovingly by God.
Mark 10: 29-31
In these verses Jesus describes the rewards one would receive for following Jesus and God. He mentions that you would receive “a hundred times more” of family, friends and land etc. then he had when he left his previous family, friends and land etc. Jesus also mentions eternal life, the reward of God for following his word.
Jesus also a kind of wealth based role reversal. “Those who are…be first.” He means that those who are poor in terms of material wealth in this life will live in the greatest spiritual comfort in the next and vice versa. Basically, do not worry about being imprisoned in this world for you shall be free in God’s kingdom.
Mark 13: 9-13
In these verses, Jesus talks about persecution directly, not shying away from the issue of it. He says that you should not worry if you are arrested because the Holy Spirit will protect you. Once again, Jesus is saying how eternally strong faith will be rewarded with eternally happy life after death.
The following passages I mention are Jesus actions that set an example to Christians facing persecution.
Mark 14: 32-34
These verses are examples that faith can obviously be tested. Jesus is reluctant to his death at the hands of man and he questions God as to its necessity, its meaning as he prays for strength. He is showing that faith can only be strong if it is tested. He prays to God speaking of how, “the sorrow in my heart is great it almost crushes me…” He also passes a proverbial remark about how faith is an extremely spiritual thing that should not be broken by arrest and torture. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak!”
Mark 15: 1-14
These verses are like the one’s mentioned above but the persecution is more intense, and evident then in 14: 32-34. Jesus’ friends abandon him (i.e. “Peter Denies Jesus) and crowds of people are calling for his death, valuing the life of the criminal Barrabas over his, the son of God (The rejecting of ‘Crime’ over the Lord Jesus Christ by the crowds is symbolic, one of the bible’s deeper meanings.) But Jesus had faith in his father and it shows with his calm and collected manner. He is basically exemplifying the faith one should have in God, so much in fact that they can handle the matter of their arrest and execution as a casual affair.
Conclusion:
Jesus’ example has been followed for centuries in acts of kindness, love, loyalty and faith and sacrifice because his strong faith and behavior in Mark’s gospel. One example of the many available is that of Maximillian Kolbe. Maximillian was a prisoner of war during world war two, in the notorious death-camp of Auschwitz. He was a Polish priest who morale high for those who were caught in arguably one of the worst situations life could throw at you, which in itself is no mean feat but he also gave them hope. He showed them how to live by Christ, and went to a debatable extreme to get his message across. He gave his own life to save a father, and a family. He gave his own life when he heard a chosen victim weeping for his wife and children. He addressed the Commanding Officer of the selection operation and said he (Maximillian) should die first because he is old and according to Nazi theory, weak ergo useless. The officer agreed, and the father lived and Maximillian Kolbe went to the Gas Chamber in his place. When the gassing commenced, the guards who started the process heard not the usual panicking, screaming and weeping but Christian Hymns, of all things, from inside the chamber. Maximillian had these men singing the “Lord is my Shepard” as they died. What could inspire men to casually sing during death? The example of Jesus of course. This is the very proof of Christians being helped by and following the example of Jesus.
